The West Virginia Health
Care Authority is responsible for the review of cooperative agreements required
under W. Va. Code § 16-29B-28.
A cooperative agreement is defined in W. Va. Code § 16-29B-28(a)(3) as
“an agreement between a qualified hospital which is a member of an academic
medical center and one or more other hospitals or other health care
providers. The agreement shall provide
for the sharing, allocation, consolidation by merger or other combination of
assets, or referral of patients, personnel, instructional programs, support
services and facilities or medical, diagnostic, or laboratory facilities or
procedures or other services traditionally offered by hospitals or other health
care providers.”
W. Va. Code § 16-29B-28(c) states “The Legislature encourages cooperative
agreements if the likely benefits of such agreements outweigh any disadvantages
attributable to a reduction in competition. When a cooperative agreement,
and the planning and negotiations of cooperative agreements, might be
anticompetitive within the meaning and intent of state and federal antitrust
laws the Legislature believes it is in the state’s best interest to supplant
such laws with regulatory approval and oversight by the Health Care Authority
as set out in this article. The authority has the power to review,
approve or deny cooperative agreements, ascertain that they are beneficial to
citizens of the state and to medical education, to ensure compliance with the
provisions of the cooperative agreements relative to the commitments made by
the qualified hospital and conditions imposed by the Health Care Authority.”
The parties to a cooperative
agreement are required to submit an annual report to the Secretary of the
Department of Health and Human Resources or his or her designee. The Health Care Authority utilizes the annual
report, as well as other information available to it, in performing the active
supervision of a cooperative agreement.